I had one that lived in a giant conifer in the front yard of a little worker house I was restoring in Central Illinois. I loved the sound of him/her and would find pieces of mice in the yard that sure looked like the work of an owl.

The urban legend about the maintenance guy that put a plastic owl in the circle at the top of the AT&T building worked to keep pigeons from crapping all over things for a time. They are still up there as far as I know.

More giant birds of prey have been introduceSave the d to NYC and other highrise citties with some success. They seem to like rooftop living and some really like pigeons. The Save the Pigeons people are not happy about them. I have never seen them but felt an obvious whooshing one early evening (of course I was not walking around in it late at night) in Central Park. I heard screams from something seconds later.

My daughter and I kayak all the rivers here. Saw this owl over towards the east coast.

I love owls also and never see them. (except for that one). 2 months ago I was glued to a ustream live video of GHO in Oklahoma. A family had a beautiful 2 story house, with narrow balconys on upper windows. The owl chose a balcony 2 yrs in a row, to raise her young. They had and monitored very well 2 web cams on the nest. This subdivision seemed to border on wide open fields. There was a chat room also. Every morning we asked what dad brought for the 'pantry'. Usually rabbit.

It was so adorable to see the white fuzzy babies when they were staying under mom to keep warm. It was funnier as they almost got too big to fit under mom, but still tried. Then they got their pin feathers and learned to wobble around. They were always stretching their wings. Then they started hopping up onto the railing and one day they fledged. Well, not immediately cause they plopped down on the front yard but knew to hide behind a shrub, where they stayed a day, then took off. It was sort of sad to see them leave. I got very attached to them.

Oh, and we could see them cough up bones and stuff that didn't digest. There's a name for it but I forget it.

It's a good thing the owner of the house was a contractor cause I imagine he had to do some scrubbing and repaint that area. He was very nice and even put up a netting around the balcony so the owlets wouldn't fall out.

An environmentalist friend was telling me about another owl that was being introduced into an area. It didn't work out cause the GHO ate them.

Last edited by Startingover; 06-02-2013 at 07:04 AM.

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Like anything else designed to scare off varmints, you'd have to plan on moving it around.

We had one in the yard and it worked for a while until the animals figured out it was never going to move. I happened to have a shepherd's crook hanging post with a bent top. I cut it back and put a 2x4 into the base of the owl. The base of the hook's post had nice sharp tines and an easy way to step on it to push it into the ground. I moved the owl about once a week and that seemed to keep the rabbits at bay, somewhat.

Like anything else designed to scare off varmints, you'd have to plan on moving it around.

We had one in the yard and it worked for a while until the animals figured out it was never going to move. I happened to have a shepherd's crook hanging post with a bent top. I cut it back and put a 2x4 into the base of the owl. The base of the hook's post had nice sharp tines and an easy way to step on it to push it into the ground. I moved the owl about once a week and that seemed to keep the rabbits at bay, somewhat.

Same thing here. We have one by the garden, and find that it becomes ineffective after maybe a week or so, then we move it, and it works for a while again. Nothing rational is going to be completely effective; all part of nature, so you do what you can, harvest what you can, and enjoy it regardless.

We had an owl that nested in the top of a partially dead poplar tree, not far from our bedroom window, maybe for two years, and I imagine that it woke me up a few times, but was mostly relaxing listening to it. Unfortunately though, the tree had to go.